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identification. Not even a bullet fragment found. No motive. No real crime scene. Only bodies. Someone was killing people in his city and he didn’t like it one bit.
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    Across the wide expanse of the Tiergarten, ostensibly taking photographs of the park with a telephoto lens, the man with the watch cap covering a near-bald head focused his attention on the commotion toward the Spree River. He clicked a few digital shots, and then looked at the back LCD screen to verify his work. His main subject, of course, was the two Polizei officers investigating the death of the men around Berlin. When he got the shots he desired, he moved the camera in another direction and pretended to shoot pictures of other people, those standing around watching the action. He wasn’t stupid enough to be caught by the Polizei cameras. Did they really think they could catch him that way?
    He had monitored the Polizei channels and heard of the discovery of another body floating in the river; he knew it had to be his work. And he just had to see the reaction of this new find of theirs. Based on the radio traffic alone, he was driving the local Polizei crazy with these deaths. He only wished he could be a tiny hummingbird fluttering over the man in charge of the investigation to hear just how frustrated he’d become.
    An inadvertent smile crossed his face. He had to get closer. Get a better look at his work. No. That was crazy. They could catch him in one of their photos. And it wasn’t important. These deaths were insignificant. Covering tracks, he knew. Nothing more. But he had to make it look like it was much worse than it was, so it would keep the Polizei busy. Two birds, one stone.
    His eyes shifted back toward the water’s edge as a medical crew hoisted the bloated corpse from the Spree and set it onto the grass at the foot of the Polizei investigator. He knew everything there was to know about this chief homicide officer—from his Catholic upbringing in northern Germany, to his rise through the ranks to run a successful office in Munich, and to his proclivity for young prostitutes. Know thy enemy, he mused, and you shall know thyself. Was that from Vogler’s bible? Who knows. He even knew the great inspector was trying to quit his cigarettes, having purchased boxes of nicotine gum and enough patches for his entire Berlin Polizei force.
    Satisfied he had what he needed, confirmation of his work, he wandered back to his Audi A3, far from the view of any cameras, and got behind the wheel. Sitting there for a moment, he contemplated his next move. First, he needed to keep the pressure on that American pig. Now that he was out of the hospital, he could finish what he started. He should’ve killed him in the hospital, but that would have been poor form. A man shouldn’t die as he lay in bed half dead. What kind of pleasure could be found in that? No, he was nothing if not patient.
    He turned over the engine, glanced one more time across the park at the crime scene, and slowly pulled out toward the east side of Berlin.

4
    Jake had been out of the hospital for two weeks now, living in his old second-floor apartment across from the Inn River with a view of the Alps to the south. He had rented the place to a man who had become somewhat of a local Innsbruck celebrity—a model whose remarkably handsome face was plastered all over Tirol on everything from billboards, which were rare in Austria, to the sides of buses—hawking products and becoming the face of the area ski scene. Every woman wanted him, but he played for the other team. With a quick phone call Jake had found out his old Polizei buddy, Franz Martini, had laid it out for the man quite clearly. He would have to move out of the apartment or something bad might happen to that pretty face of his. It wasn’t a threat, Jake had later explained to the man, simply a fact of life or death. Jake didn’t want the guy caught in any crossfire. He’d been a great tenant for over two years, and,